thoughts, insights and stories, learned, gained and experienced on the path to knowing Him

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

was Christ fully God?

I've been asked this question a few times recently, so I figured I'd post a blog about it...and, because I'm short on time I'm just going to copy and paste a question/answer between myself and a student who asked it:

From: [undisclosed Korean student who looks like Russell from "Up"][ok, so, those of you who know him, it was Tae! :) ]----matthew 24:36No one knows about that day or the hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father

Christ is God, God is all knowing......im confused @_@

---my response---good question, bro. i'll admit, i don't fully understand it either. i don't fully understand Jesus. He was 100% man -- He was born like any other person, He was a baby dependent on His mother's milk, He grew up and "kept increasing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men," (Luke 2:52) He got hungry and thirsty, He got tired (John 4:6), he slept (Mark 4:38), etc. etc. He was 100% human.

But at the same time he was 100% God. He was worshiped (Matt. 14:33), He could forgive sins (Mark 2:5), He could control nature with His words (Mark 4:39), etc. etc.

So does Matthew 24:36 prove that Jesus was not omniscient (knowing everything)? There's actually other times where Jesus seems to not know something. When the woman was pushing through the crowd to touch the hem of His garment he asked "who touched me?" and then continued looking through the crowd. (Mark 5:32) It seems that Jesus was TRULY asking "who touched me?" because He didn't know. hmmmm....

Well, let's talk about something else for a bit to try to make some sense of this...

Isn't God majestic? Yes. Completely. When we see the throne room we see Him bright and majestic, shining and glorified. In Isaiah 6 when Isaiah sees God on the throne he realizes how awesome God is and how unholy he is. (Interesting note: from John 12 we can actually see that this "LORD" who is sitting on the throne in Isaiah 6 is Christ Himself! ...we can know this because John 12 quotes Isaiah 6 and refers to the one seated on the throne as Christ. notice how John 12:41 says "Isaiah said these things because he saw His glory and spoke of Him"...well who is the "Him" in context in John 12? it's Christ! So, Christ is gloriously majestic.) We also see similar things in Revelation chapters 1 and 4 -- Jesus is majestic in these chapters as well.

But when people saw Jesus on earth they weren't overwhelmed with His majesty. Sure, they were shocked by His miracles and His words, but these are words and actions...things He did, not simply who He appeared to be. A lot of the reactions of the Pharisees etc. proved that when they looked at Him all they thought they were looking at was a regular human being (Luke 4:22 they just thought He was Joseph's son...Joseph was someone these people knew. Someone some of them had grown up with. A regular man. ...notice Jesus was speaking to people in Nazareth, His hometown where He had grown up; also, Matthew 12:23 the people say "This man cannot be the Son of David, can He?" ...they didn't think He could be the Messiah (Son of David was a common term for the Messiah)...His appearance wasn't anything to marvel at (see Isaiah 53:2))

So...but Jesus was fully God, right? And God is majestic, right? Why then was Jesus of Nazareth not fully majestic??

Well...to quote Shai Linne, "He put independent use of His attributes on the shelf". ....Christ did not lose or get rid of or take off any of His "Godness" when He became a man--what He did was humble Himself. (check out Philippians 2:1-11). He was still fully, 100% God very God. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. But, He put His independent use of His attributes on the shelf. He relied entirely upon the Holy Spirit's use of the attributes of God through His life.

Isaiah 6 shows Christ's majesty before His time on earth. Then, we don't really see His majesty while He was here on earth (except for a time in the Transfiguration Matt. 17; Mark 9; Luke 9). But, later on, we do see Christ's majesty after He ascended back to Heaven (see Revelation 1 and 4).

We can expect His omniscience to follow the same pattern. Just as we didn't see Jesus' majesty while He was here on earth except when God ordains it to be seen (like at the Transfiguration), so we only see Him being omniscient when God ordains it.

me and walker prayed for you and your family the other day, bro. ...press on.

elias----OK - after reading my attempt to explain this...if you want to hear an EXCELLENT exposition on the incarnation of Christ (God the Son becoming a man) then listen to this. (Right-click and choose "save target as" to download it.)This is a sermon preached by Bruce Ware at Community Bible Church's "Exalting Christ Conference". You can listen to all the sermons here.